Italy: Consultations start to form a new coalition government

2019-08-21T02:28:58.974Z

Italy: Consultations start to form a new coalition government

Rome (AFP)

The Italian political class will march from Wednesday to the Quirinal Palace, official residence of President Sergio Mattarella, where various formations will propose the constitution of a new government after the end of the coalition League-Movement 5 Stars.

Appointment is made for 16:00 (14:00 GMT), when the president, who in the Italian parliamentary system holds the keys to the resolution of the crisis, will initiate his traditional "consultations" by a phone call to his predecessor Giorgio Napolitano, 94 (May 2006 to January 2015).

Then, it will receive, over two days, the presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies then all the parliamentary groups, ending Thursday by the most numerically, that of the M5S, with its victory in the elections of 2018 with more than 32 % voices.

Because, no matter if today the leader of the League (far right), Matteo Salvini, represents theoretically in polls 36 to 38% of the vote and the M5S only 15 or 16%. In Parliament, its seats are worth only the 17% collected at the time.

Said Salvini, who was called "irresponsible" and "opportunistic" on Tuesday in the Senate by incumbent Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, has maintained his line: he will ask the president "the royal way" of the return to the polls because "in democracy the thing the most beautiful is to vote ".

Salvini plunged Italy into crisis on 8 August by breaking, without warning, a mismatched marriage concluded 14 months earlier with the M5S, which he accused of systematically opposing his economic plans, and by calling for immediate elections.

President Mattarella has a series of options, including, as a last resort, if no majority emerges, that of an advance poll.

- "Open a new page" -

But he is notoriously reluctant to this idea because it would be organized in the autumn, when the third economy of the euro zone, heavily indebted and at a standstill, will have to submit to the European Commission its draft budget for 2020.

He will listen to each other's proposals and then make a decision, perhaps not before Friday.

In the meantime, the Democratic Party (center-left) has announced, through former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, that he intends to deepen his idea of ​​an alliance with the M5S, to form a government "institutional", which could be carried out again by Mr. Conte.

In the opinion of specialists, the Prime Minister grew out of the crisis. Tuesday, the head of the M5S, Luigi di Maio, described him as "servant of the Nation which Italy can not do without". Some people think he is also European Commissioner, or even president in 2022 to succeed Mr. Mattarella.

"I hope that with the defeat of Salvini we will be able to open a new page for Italy," AFP interviewer Renzi told AFP. "The agreement between the M5S and the PD can be a solution", despite the strong enmities of the past, because "the most important is the financial security of Italy," he said.

Problem: There is no consensus within the PD as party leader Nicola Zingaretti is more reluctant than Mr Renzi. He reminded Mr. Conte that he had accepted, in recent months, the security crackdown on migrants and the NGOs that help them, led by Salvini.

The party will meet its staff Wednesday from 11:00 (09:00 GMT).

Another hypothesis proposed by the former Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission Romano Prodi, a broad coalition left-right to the German, resolutely pro-European, he called the "Ursula government".

Here again, no certainty about such an alliance, which would include Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (center-right) party.

Former President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani, close to Berlusconi, considered it "impossible", in an interview with AFP, preferring a union of the right behind "the same liberal vision".

Mr Salvini had proposed an alliance to Silvio Berlusconi and the ultra-right formation of the Brothers of Italy, garnering more than 50% of the voting intentions, and therefore an overwhelming and unprecedented majority. But the operation failed because Salvini wanted a single list and Berlusconi feared that FI would disappear.